1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the collection of blood and medical specimens, for example, in a medical facility, such as a hospital.
2. Description of Related Art
In today's hospitals, mislabeling of specimen tubes, vials, or collection containers is a common problem that poses grave medical risk to a patient and potentially high liability to the institution. Despite best efforts at training and automation of the process with computers and barcodes, errors persist. The number of specimens collected and blood draws is quite high for a typical hospital. Error rates at or close to zero have been an unachievable goal.
Mislabeling errors can include: wrong patient name; missing label; mis-communicated order; outdated tube, vial, or container; unreadable, smudged, or bruised label; tube, vial, or container not labeled at bedside in accordance with applicable standards; and contamination while handling tube, vial, or container to add label. For the purpose of simplicity, hereinafter, the word “vial” will be utilized to describe the prior art in the present invention, and it is to be understood that “vial” means any specimen collection vessel deemed suitable and/or desirable by one skilled in the art for the collection of a specimen from a patient. Accordingly, “vial” is to be understood as being, without limitation, a vial, a tube, or a container.
Staff that attach labels to specimen vials in most modern hospitals can include: a floor nurse; a phlebotomist; a patient care technician; an emergency room nurse; an operating room nurse; a surgical floor nurse; and a lab technician.
The core problem has been identified to involve: failure to verify patient identity typically at the bedside; failure to use two forms of patient identity independent of a medical record number; and failure to verify that the patient identity matches the patient information on the printed label to be attached to the specimen vial.
Most hospitals use a wrist (or ankle) identification (ID) band to identify each patient with information that at minimum includes the patient's name and date of birth. Modern hospitals either use or are considering using a barcode to encode this and possibly other patient information on the ID band at registration to automate the capture of the patient's information without human error.
Although barcodes on ID bands work well after registration, some emergency room (ER) trauma patients are moved immediately to a bed where a specimen is drawn in anticipation of a medical doctor (MD) order and prior to full registration where the barcoded ID band is produced. These patients may use a handwritten ID band or an ID band without a barcode. Mistakes in getting the correct label onto the proper specimen vial are well documented. Unused full blood vials drawn in anticipation of an MD order are also at high risk of being labeled for the wrong patient as patients are moved with some frequency in the ER.
In the rest of the hospital, i.e., other than the ER, a typical, prior art flow diagram for collecting a specimen is shown in FIG. 1. The many types of specimens that are routinely collected are shown in FIG. 2.
With reference to FIG. 1, a method of collecting a specimen (e.g., a blood specimen) in accordance with the prior art includes step 2, where a suitable medical professional, e.g., a medical doctor (MD), a physician's assistant, etc., places an order to draw the blood specimen from a patient who is desirably already wearing a conventional ID band that includes at least the patient's name and date of birth, but which may not include any computer-readable code, such as, without limitation, a patient barcode.
After the order is placed in step 2, the method advances to step 4 where the order to draw the blood specimen from the patient is entered into a computer in any suitable and/or desirable manner, e.g., without limitation, by a data entry person. Thereafter, the method advances to step 6 where barcode labels associated with the order are printed. These printed barcode labels may include one or more of the following: one or more order barcode labels, one or more patient barcode labels, and/or one or more vial barcode labels to be applied to one or more specimen vials that either will receive or have already received a specimen.
Thereafter, in step 8, the barcode labels printed in step 4 are retrieved, perhaps from a printer that has also printed other, unrelated barcode labels. In step 10, these retrieved barcode labels and the patient are brought together (e.g., in the patient's room) where, in step 12, the specimen-taker determines whether the patient is wearing an ID band. If not, the method advances to step 14 where appropriate corrective action is taken to prepare an ID band for the patient and fasten it to the patient.
From either step 12 or step 14, the method advances to step 16 where the specimen-taker manually compares information on the patient's ID band to like information on the printed barcode labels. This information desirably includes, among other things, a medical record number, the patient's name, and the patient's date of birth. If, in step 18, the specimen-taker determines that the information on the patient's ID band does not match like information on the printed barcode labels, the method advances to step 20 where appropriate corrective action is taken to make the information on the patient's ID band and the like information on the printed barcode labels match.
From either step 18 or step 20, the method advances to step 22 where the specimen-taker collects the specimen (in this example a blood specimen) in one or more specimen vials. In step 24, the specimen-taker applies at least one of printed vial barcode labels to each specimen containing vial. In practice, the order of steps 22 and 24 may be reversed. Once each specimen vial contains a specimen and has one of the printed vial barcode labels applied thereto, the specimen vial is sent to the lab for analysis of the specimen.
In view of the prior art method of collecting a specimen described above being known to result in mislabeling of specimen vials, it would be desirable to provide a method and system that reduces or avoids such mislabeling of specimen vials.